Name	Yiddish
Nativename	''yidish''
Pronunciation
States	United States, Israel, Argentina, Brazil, United Kingdom, Russia, Canada, Ukraine, Belarus, Hungary, Mexico, Moldova, Latvia, Lithuania, Belgium, Germany, Poland, Australia, France, Sweden and elsewhere.
Speakers	1,762,320
Familycolor	Indo-European
Fam2	Germanic
Fam3	West Germanic
Fam4	High German
Script	uses a Hebrew-based alphabet
Nation	Official minority language inRecognized as a minority language in the Russian
Agency	no formal bodies;YIVO de facto
Iso1	yi|iso2yid
Iso3	yid
Lc1	ydd|ld1Eastern Yiddish|ll1none
Lc2	yih|ld2Western Yiddish|ll2none
Lingua	52-ACB-g 52-ACB-ga (West) + 52-ACB-gb (East); totalling 11 varieties }}

Yiddish ( ''yidish'' or ''idish'', literally "Jewish") is a High German language of Ashkenazi Jewish origin, spoken throughout the world. It developed as a fusion of German dialects with Hebrew, Aramaic, Slavic languages and traces of Romance languages. It is written in the Hebrew alphabet.

The language originated in the Ashkenazi culture that developed from about the 10th century in the Rhineland and then spread to Central and Eastern Europe and eventually to other continents. In the earliest surviving references to it, the language is called (''loshn-ashknez'' = "language of Ashkenaz") and (''taytsh'', a variant of ''tiutsch'', the contemporary name for the language otherwise spoken in the region of origin, now called Middle High German). In common usage, the language is called (''mame-loshn'', literally "mother tongue"), distinguishing it from Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic, which are collectively termed (''loshn-koydesh'', "holy tongue"). The term "Yiddish" did not become the most frequently used designation in the literature of the language until the 18th century.

For a significant portion of its history, Yiddish was the primary spoken language of the Ashkenazi Jews and once spanned a broad dialect continuum from Western Yiddish to three major groups within Eastern Yiddish, namely Litvish, Poylish and Ukrainish. Eastern and Western Yiddish are most markedly distinguished by the extensive inclusion of words of Slavic origin in the Eastern dialects. While Western Yiddish has few remaining speakers, Eastern dialects remain in wide use.

Yiddish is written and spoken in Orthodox Jewish communities around the world. It is a home language in most Hasidic communities, where it is the first language learned in childhood, used in schools and in many social settings.

Yiddish is also used in the adjectival sense to designate attributes of Ashkenazic culture (for example, Yiddish cooking and Yiddish music).

History

The Ashkenazi culture that took root in 10th century Central Europe derived its name from ''Ashkenaz'' (Genesis 10:3), the medieval Hebrew name for the territory centred on what is now Germany. Its geographic extent did not coincide with the German Christian principalities; Ashkenaz included Northern France. It also bordered on the area inhabited by the Sephardim, or Spanish Jews, which ranged into Southern France. Ashkenazi culture later spread into Eastern Europe.

The first language of European Jews may have been Aramaic, the vernacular of the Jews in Roman-era Palestine and ancient and early medieval Mesopotamia. The widespread use of Aramaic among the large non-Jewish Syrian trading population of the Roman provinces, including those in Europe, would have reinforced the use of Aramaic among Jews engaged in trade. In Roman times, many of the Jews living in Rome and Southern Italy appear to have been Greek-speakers, and this is reflected in some Ashkenazi personal names (e.g., ''Kalonymus''). Much work needs to be done, though, to fully analyze the contributions of those languages to Yiddish.

Nothing is known about the vernacular of the earliest Jews in Germany, but several theories have been put forward. It is generally accepted that it was likely to have contained elements from other languages of the Near East and Europe, absorbed through dispersion. Since many settlers came via France and Italy, it is also likely that the Romance-based Jewish languages of those regions were represented. Traces remain in the contemporary Yiddish vocabulary: for example, (''bentshn'', to bless), from the Latin ''''; and the personal name Anshl, cognate to Angel or Angelo. Western Yiddish includes additional words of Latin derivation (but still very few): for example, ''orn'' (to pray), cf. Latin "orare."

Members of the young Ashkenazi community would have encountered the myriad dialects from which standard German was destined to emerge many centuries later. They would soon have been speaking their own versions of these German dialects, mixed with linguistic elements that they themselves brought into the region. These dialects would have adapted to the needs of the burgeoning Ashkenazi culture and may, as characterizes many such developments, have included the deliberate cultivation of linguistic differences to assert cultural autonomy. The Ashkenazi community also had its own geography, with a pattern of relationships among settlements that was somewhat independent of its non-Jewish neighbors. This led to the consolidation of Yiddish dialects, the borders of which did not coincide with the borders of German dialects.

Apart from the obvious use of Hebrew words for specifically Jewish artifacts, it is very difficult to determine the extent to which the Yiddish spoken in any earlier period differed from the contemporary German. There is a rough consensus that by the 15th century Yiddish would have sounded distinctive to the average German ear, even when restricted to the Germanic component of its vocabulary.

Written evidence

The oldest surviving literary document in Yiddish is a blessing in the Worms Mahzor, a Hebrew prayer book from 1272 (with a scalable image online at the indicated reference; described extensively in Frakes, 2004 and Baumgarten/Frakes, 2005):

Yiddish
Transliterated	''gut tak im betage se vaer dis makhazor in beis hakneses trage''
Translated	May a good day come to him who carries this prayer book into the synagogue.

This brief rhyme is decoratively embedded in a purely Hebrew text. Nonetheless, it indicates that the Yiddish of that day was a more or less regular Middle High German into which Hebrew words – ''makhazor'' (prayer book for the High Holy Days) and ''beis hakneses'' (synagogue) – had been included. The pointing appears as though it might have been added by a second scribe, in which case it may need to be dated separately and may not be indicative of the pronunciation of the rhyme at the time of its initial annotation.

Over the course of the 14th and 15th centuries, songs and poems in Yiddish, and also macaronic pieces in Hebrew and German, began to appear. These were collected in the late 15th century by Menahem ben Naphtali Oldendorf. During the same period, a tradition seems to have emerged of the Jewish community's adapting its own versions of German secular literature. The earliest Yiddish epic poem of this sort is the ''Dukus Horant'', which survives in the famous Cambridge Codex T.-S.10.K.22. This 14th-century manuscript was discovered in the geniza of a Cairo synagogue in 1896, and also contains a collection of narrative poems on themes from the Hebrew Bible and the Haggadah.

Printing

The advent of the printing press resulted in an increase in the amount of material produced and surviving from the 16th century and onwards. One particularly popular work was Elia Levita's ''Bovo-Bukh'', composed around 1507–08 and printed in at least forty editions, beginning in 1541. Levita, the earliest named Yiddish author, may also have written ''Pariz un Viene'' (Paris and Vienna). Another Yiddish retelling of a chivalric romance, ''Vidvilt'' (often referred to as "Widuwilt" by Germanizing scholars), presumably also dates from the 15th century, although the manuscripts are from the 16th. It is also known as ''Kinig Artus Hof'', an adaptation of the Middle High German romance ''Wigalois'' by Wirnt von Gravenberg. Another significant writer is Avroham ben Schemuel Pikartei, who published a paraphrase on the Book of Job in 1557.

Women in the Ashkenazi community were traditionally not literate in Hebrew, but did read and write Yiddish. A body of literature therefore developed for which women were a primary audience. This included secular works, such as the ''Bovo-Bukh'', and religious writing specifically for women, such as the ''Tseno Ureno'' and the ''Tkhines''. One of the best-known early woman authors was Glückel of Hameln, whose memoirs are still in print.

The segmentation of the Yiddish readership, between women who read ''mame-loshn'' but not ''loshn-koydesh'', and men who read both, was significant enough that distinctive typefaces were used for each. The name commonly given to the semicursive form used exclusively for Yiddish was (''vaybertaytsh'' = "women's ''taytsh''," shown in the heading and fourth column in the adjacent illustration), with square Hebrew letters (shown in the third column) being reserved for text in that language and Aramaic. This distinction was retained in general typographic practice through to the early 19th century, with Yiddish books being set in ''vaybertaytsh'' (also termed ''mesheyt'' or ''mashket'' — the construction is uncertain).

An additional distinctive semicursive typeface was, and still is, used for rabbinical commentary on religious texts when Hebrew and Yiddish appear on the same page. This is commonly termed Rashi script, from the name of the most renowned early author, whose commentary is usually printed using this script. (Rashi is also the typeface normally used when the Sefardi counterpart to Yiddish, Ladino, is printed in Hebrew script.)

Secularization

The Western Yiddish dialect began to decline in the 18th century, as the Enlightenment and the ''Haskalah'' led to the German view that Yiddish was a corrupt dialect. Owing to both assimilation to German and the incipient creation of Modern Hebrew, Western Yiddish survived only as a language of "intimate family circles or of closely knit trade groups" (Liptzin 1972). Farther east, the response to this force took the opposite direction, with Yiddish becoming the cohesive force in a secular culture (see Yiddish Renaissance).

The late 19th and early 20th century are widely considered the Golden Age of secular Yiddish literature. This coincides with the development of Modern Hebrew as a spoken and literary language, from which some words were also absorbed into Yiddish. The three authors generally regarded as the founders of the modern Yiddish literary genre were born in the 19th century, but their work and significance continued to grow into the 20th. The first was Sholem Yankev Abramovitch, writing as Mendele Mocher Sforim. The second was Sholem Rabinovitsh, widely known as Sholem Aleichem, whose stories about (''tevye der milkhiker'' = Tevye the Dairyman) inspired the Broadway musical and film ''Fiddler on the Roof''. The third was Isaac Leib Peretz.

20th century

In the early 20th century, especially after Socialist October Revolution in Russia, Yiddish was emerging as a major Eastern European language. Its rich literature was more widely published than ever, Yiddish theatre and Yiddish film were booming, and it even achieved status as one of the official languages of the Belarusian and the short-lived Galician SSR. Educational autonomy for Jews in several countries (notably Poland) after World War I led to an increase in formal Yiddish-language education, more uniform orthography, and to the 1925 founding of the Yiddish Scientific Institute, YIVO. Yiddish emerged as the national language of a large Jewish community in Eastern Europe that rejected Zionism and sought Jewish cultural autonomy in Europe. It also contended with Modern Hebrew as a literary language among Zionists.

Yiddish changed significantly during the 20th century. Michael Wex writes, "As increasing numbers of Yiddish speakers moved from the Slavic-speaking East to Western Europe and the Americas in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, they were so quick to jettison Slavic vocabulary that the most prominent Yiddish writers of the time—the founders of modern Yiddish literature, who were still living in Slavic-speaking countries—revised the printed editions of their oeuvres to eliminate obsolete and 'unnecessary' Slavisms." The vocabulary used in Israel absorbed many Modern Hebrew words, and there was a similar increase in the English component of Yiddish in the United States and, to a lesser extent, the United Kingdom. This has resulted in some difficulty in communication between Yiddish speakers from Israel and those from other countries.

Numbers of speakers

On the eve of World War II, there were 11 to 13 million Yiddish speakers (Jacobs 2005). The Holocaust, however, led to a dramatic, sudden decline in the use of Yiddish, as the extensive Jewish communities, both secular and religious, that used Yiddish in their day-to-day life were largely destroyed. Around 85 percent of the Jews that died in the Holocaust – five million people – were speakers of Yiddish. Although millions of Yiddish speakers survived the war (including nearly all Yiddish speakers in the Americas), further assimilation in countries such as the United States and the Soviet Union, along with the strictly monolingual stance of the Zionist movement, led to a decline in the use of Eastern Yiddish. However, the number of speakers within the widely dispersed Orthodox (mainly Hasidic) communities is now increasing. Although used in various countries, Yiddish has attained official recognition as a minority language only in Moldova, the Netherlands and Sweden.

Reports of the number of current Yiddish speakers vary significantly. Ethnologue estimated in 2009 there were 1,762,320 speakers of Eastern Yiddish, of which over one-third lived in the United States. In contrast, the Modern Language Association reports fewer than 200,000 in the United States. Western Yiddish, which had "several tens of thousands of speakers" on the eve of the Holocaust, is reported by Ethnologue to have had an "ethnic population" of slightly below 50,000 in 2000. Other estimates are also given, for example, of a worldwide Yiddish-speaking population of about two million in 1996 in a report by the Council of Europe. Further demographic information about the recent status of what is treated as an Eastern-Western dialect continuum is provided in the YIVO ''Language and Cultural Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry'' (Language and Cultural Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry).

Status as a language

There has been frequent debate about the extent of the linguistic independence of Yiddish from the languages that it absorbed. Some commentary dismisses Yiddish as mere jargon, although in Yiddish that term is also used as a colloquial designation for the language without any pejorative connotation. There has been periodic assertion that Yiddish is a dialect of German, or even "just broken German, more of a linguistic mishmash than a true language". Even when recognized as an autonomous language, it has sometimes been referred to as Judeo-German, along the lines of other Jewish languages like Judeo-Persian or Judeo-French. A widely cited summary of attitudes in the 1930s was published by Max Weinreich, quoting a remark by an auditor of one of his lectures: ('' a shprakh iz a dialekt mit an armey un flot''—"A language is a dialect with an army and navy", facsimile excerpt at discussed in detail in a separate article). More recently, Prof. Paul Wexler, of Tel Aviv University in Israel, has proposed that Eastern Yiddish should be classified as a Slavic language, formed by the relexification of Judeo-Slavic dialects by Judeo-German.

Israel

The national language of Israel is Hebrew, Arabic being an official language as well. The rejection of Yiddish as an alternative reflected the conflict between religious and secular forces. Many in the larger, secular group wanted a new national language to foster a cohesive identity, while traditionally religious Jews desired that Hebrew be respected as a holy language reserved for prayer and religious study. In the early twentieth century, Zionist immigrants in Palestine tried to eradicate the use of Yiddish among their own population, and make its use socially unacceptable.

This conflict also reflected the opposing views among secular Jews worldwide, one side seeing Hebrew (and Zionism) and the other Yiddish (and Internationalism) as the means of defining emerging Jewish nationalism. In the 1920s and 1930s, ''gdud meginéy hasafá'', "the language defendants regiment", whose motto was ''ivrí, dabér ivrít'' "Hebrew [i.e. Jew], speak Hebrew!", used to tear down signs written in "foreign" languages and disturb Yiddish theatre gatherings. However, according to linguist Ghil'ad Zuckermann, the members of this group in particular, and the Hebrew revival in general, did not succeed in uprooting Yiddish patterns (as well as the patterns of other European languages Jewish immigrants spoke) within what he calls "Israeli", i.e. Modern Hebrew. Zuckermann believes that "Israeli does include numerous Hebrew elements resulting from a conscious revival but also numerous pervasive linguistic features deriving from a subconscious survival of the revivalists’ mother tongues, e.g. Yiddish.".

In religious circles, it is the Ashkenazi Haredi Jews, particularly the Hasidic Jews and the mitnagdim of the Lithuanian yeshiva world, who continue to teach, speak and use Yiddish, making it a language used regularly by hundreds of thousands of Haredi Jews today. The largest of these centers are in Bnei Brak and Jerusalem. However, virtually all of these Yiddish speakers also speak Modern Hebrew.

There is a growing revival of interest in Yiddish culture among secular Israelis, with the flourishing of new proactive cultural organizations like YUNG YiDiSH, as well as Yiddish theater (usually with simultaneous translation to Hebrew and Russian) and young people are taking university courses in Yiddish, some achieving considerable fluency.

Former Soviet Union

In the Soviet Union during the 1920s, Yiddish was promoted as the language of the Jewish proletariat. It was one of the official languages of the Byelorussian SSR, as well as several agricultural districts of the Galician SSR. A public educational system entirely based on the Yiddish language was established and comprised kindergartens, schools, and higher educational institutions (technical schools, rabfaks and other university departments). At the same time, Hebrew was considered a bourgeois language and its use was generally discouraged. The vast majority of the Yiddish-language cultural institutions were closed in the late 1930s along with cultural institutions of other ethnic minorities lacking administrative entities of their own. After the Second World War, growing anti-Semitic tendencies in Soviet politics drove Yiddish from most spheres. The last Yiddish-language schools, theaters and publications were closed by the end of the 1940s. It continued to be spoken widely for decades, nonetheless, in areas with compact Jewish populations (primarily in Moldova, Ukraine, and to a lesser extent Belarus).

In the former Soviet states, presently active Yiddish authors include Yoysef Burg (Chernivtsi 1912-2009) and Aleksander Beyderman (b. 1949, Odessa). Publication of an earlier Yiddish periodical (), was resumed in 2004 with (''der nayer fraynd''; lit. "The New Friend", St. Petersburg).

Jewish Autonomous Oblast of Russia

thumb|upright|left|Birobidzhan's train terminal square

The Jewish Autonomous Oblast was formed in 1934 in the Russian Far East, with its capital city in Birobidzhan and Yiddish as its official language. The intention was for the Soviet Jewish population to settle there. Jewish cultural life was revived in Birobidzhan much earlier than elsewhere in the Soviet Union. Yiddish theaters began opening in the 1970s. The newspaper (''Der Birobidzhaner Shtern''; lit: "The Birobidzhan Star") includes a Yiddish section. Although the official status of the language was not retained by the Russian Federation, its cultural significance is still recognized and bolstered. The First Birobidzhan International Summer Program for Yiddish Language and Culture was launched in 2007.

Sweden

In June 1999, the Swedish Parliament enacted legislation giving Yiddish legal status as one of the country's official minority languages (entering into effect in April 2000). The rights thereby conferred are not detailed, but additional legislation was enacted in June 2006 establishing a new governmental agency, The Swedish National Language Council, the mandate of which instructs it to, "collect, preserve, scientifically research, and spread material about the national minority languages", naming them all explicitly, including Yiddish. When announcing this action, the government made an additional statement about "simultaneously commencing completely new initiatives for ... Yiddish [and the other minority languages]".

The Swedish government publishes documents in Yiddish, of which the most recent details the national action plan for human rights. An earlier one provides general information about national minority language policies.

On 6 September 2007, it became possible to register Internet domains with Yiddish names in the national top-level domain .SE.

United States

[[File:Yiddish language distribution in the United States.svg|thumb|300px|Yiddish distribution in the United States. ]] At first, in the United States most Jews were of Sephardic origin, and hence did not speak Yiddish. It was not until the mid to late 19th century, as first German, then Eastern European, Jews arrived in the nation, that Yiddish became dominant within the immigrant community. This helped to bond Jews from many countries. (''forverts'' – Yiddish Forward) was one of seven Yiddish daily newspapers in New York City, and other Yiddish newspapers served as a forum for Jews of all European backgrounds. The ''Yiddish Forward'' still appears weekly and is available in an online edition. It remains in wide distribution, together with (''der algemeyner zhurnal'' – Algemeiner Journal; ''algemeyner'' = general) a Lubavitcher newspaper which is also published weekly and appears online. The widest-circulation Yiddish newspapers are probably the two prominent Satmar weekly issues (Der Blatt; ''blat'' = newspaper) and (Der Yid = The Jew). Several additional newspapers and magazines are in regular production, such as the monthly publications (Der Shtern; ''shtern'' = star) and (Der Blick; ''blik'' = view). (The romanized titles cited in this paragraph are in the form given on the masthead of each publication and may be at some variance both with the literal Yiddish title and the transliteration rules otherwise applied in this article.)

Interest in klezmer music provided another bonding mechanism. Thriving Yiddish theater, especially in New York City, kept the language vital. Many "Yiddishisms," like "Italianisms" and "Spanishisms," continued to enter the spoken New York dialect, often used by Jews and non-Jews alike, unaware of the linguistic origin of the phrases (described extensively by Leo Rosten in ''The Joys of Yiddish''). However, native Yiddish speakers tended not to pass the language on to their children, who assimilated and spoke English.

Most of the Jewish immigrants to the New York metropolitan area during the years of Ellis Island considered Yiddish their native language. For example, Isaac Asimov states in his autobiography, ''In Memory Yet Green,'' that Yiddish was his first and sole spoken language and remained so for about two years after he emigrated to the United States as a small child. By contrast, Asimov's younger siblings, born in the United States, never developed any degree of fluency in Yiddish.

In 1976, the Canadian-born American author Saul Bellow received the Nobel Prize in literature. He was fluent in Yiddish, and translated several Yiddish poems and stories into English, including Isaac Bashevis Singer's "Gimpel the Fool".

In 1978, the Polish-born Yiddish author Isaac Bashevis Singer, a resident of the United States, received the Nobel Prize in literature.

Legal scholars Eugene Volokh and Alex Kozinski argue that Yiddish is “supplanting Latin as the spice in American legal argot.” Note: an updated version of the article appears on Professor Volokh's UCLA web page.

Present U.S. speaker population

In the 2000 census, 178,945 people in the United States reported speaking Yiddish at home. Of these speakers, 113,515 lived in New York (63.43% of American Yiddish speakers); 18,220 in Florida (10.18%); 9,145 in New Jersey (5.11%); and 8,950 in California (5.00%). The remaining states with speaker populations larger than 1,000 are Pennsylvania (5,445), Ohio (1,925), Michigan (1,945), Massachusetts (2,380), Maryland (2,125), Illinois (3,510), Connecticut (1,710), and Arizona (1,055). The population is largely elderly: 72,885 of the speakers were older than 65, 66,815 were between 18 and 64, and only 39,245 were age 17 or lower. In the six years since the 2000 census, the 2006 American Community Survey reflected an estimated 15 percent decline of people speaking Yiddish at home in the U.S. to 152,515.

There are a few predominantly Hasidic communities in the United States in which Yiddish remains the majority language. Kiryas Joel, New York is one such; in the 2000 census, nearly 90% of residents of Kiryas Joel reported speaking Yiddish at home.

United Kingdom

There are well over 30,000 Yiddish speakers in the United Kingdom, and several thousand children now have Yiddish as a first language. The largest group of Yiddish speakers in Britain reside in the Stamford Hill district of North London, but there are sizeable communities in Golders Green, Stoke Newington, Manchester and Gateshead. The Yiddish readership in the UK is mainly reliant upon imported material from the United States and Israel for newspapers, magazines and other periodicals. However, the London-based weekly ''Jewish Tribune'', has a small section in Yiddish called ''Idishe Tribune''.

Religious communities

The major exception to the decline of spoken Yiddish can be found in Haredi communities all over the world. In some of the more closely knit such communities Yiddish is spoken as a home and schooling language, especially in Hasidic, Litvish or Yeshivish communities such as Brooklyn's Borough Park, Williamsburg and Crown Heights, and in the communities of Monsey, Kiryas Joel and New Square in New York State (over 88% of the population of Kiryas Joel is reported to speak Yiddish at home.) Also in New Jersey Yiddish is widely spoken mostly in Lakewood but also in smaller Yeshivishe towns with yeshivos such as Passaic, Teaneck and elsewhere. Yiddish is also widely spoken in the Antwerp Jewish community and in Haredi communities such as the ones in London, Manchester and Montreal. Among most Ashkenazi Haredim, Hebrew is generally reserved for prayer, while Yiddish is used for religious studies as well as a home and business language. In Israel, however, Haredim commonly speak Hebrew, with the notable exception of many Hasidic communities. However, some Haredim who use Modern Hebrew also understand Yiddish. There are some who send their children to schools in which the primary language of instruction is Yiddish. Members of movements such as Satmar Hasidism, who view the commonplace use of Hebrew as a form of Zionism, use Yiddish almost exclusively.

Hundreds of thousands of young children around the globe have been, and are still, taught to translate the texts of the Torah into Yiddish. This process is called (''taytshn'')—"translating" . Most Ashkenazi yeshivas' highest level lectures in Talmud and Halakha are delivered in Yiddish by the rosh yeshivas as well as ethical talks of mussar. Hasidic rebbes generally use only Yiddish to converse with their followers and to deliver their various Torah talks, classes, and lectures. The linguistic style and vocabulary of Yiddish have influenced the manner in which many Orthodox Jews who attend yeshivas speak English. This usage is distinctive enough that it has been dubbed "Yeshivish".

While Hebrew remains the language of Jewish prayer, the Hasidim have mixed some Yiddish into their Hebrew, and are also responsible for a significant secondary religious literature written in Yiddish. For example, the tales about the Baal Shem Tov were written largely in Yiddish. As well as the Torah Talks of the late Lubavitch leaders are published in their original form, Yiddish. In addition, some prayers, such as the Got fun Avrohom, were composed and are recited in Yiddish.

Moreover, many Hasidic girls in the Diaspora are not taught Hebrew at all, and therefore do not understand either ancient or modern Hebrew. Even those who are taught parts of the Bible will still use prayer books with Yiddish translation and commentaries, as their comprehension of Hebrew is deficient.

Modern Yiddish education

There has been a resurgence in Yiddish learning in recent times among many from around the world with Jewish ancestry. The language which had lost many of its native speakers during WWII has been making somewhat of a comeback. In Poland, which traditionally had Yiddish speaking communities, a particular museum has begun to revive Yiddish education and culture. Located in Kraków, the Galicia Jewish Museum offers classes in Yiddish Language Instruction and workshops on Yiddish Songs. The museum has taken steps to revive the culture through concerts and events held on site. There are various Universities worldwide which now offer Yiddish programs based on the YIVO Yiddish standard. Many of these programs are held during the summer and are attended by Yiddish enthusiasts from around the world. One such school located within Vilnius University (Vilnius Yiddish Institute) was the first Yiddish center of higher learning to be established in post-Holocaust Eastern Europe. Vilnius Yiddish Institute is an integral part of the four-century-old Vilnius University. Published Yiddish scholar and researcher Dovid Katz is among the Faculty. Other schools which offer Yiddish programs include Tel Aviv University, Brandeis University, University College London, YIVO, New York University, Hampshire College campus at Amherst (home of the National Yiddish Book Center), Binghamton University, Harvard University, Stanford University, University of Pennsylvania, Indiana University, Bloomington, The Ohio State University, University of Düsseldorf, University of Chicago, Columbia University, Vassar College, UMass Amherst, UCLA, Emory University in Atlanta, University of Virginia, the University of Manitoba, and the University of Sao Paulo, in Brazil. Despite this growing popularity among many American Jews, finding opportunities for practical use of Yiddish is becoming increasingly difficult, and thus many students have trouble learning to speak the language.

See also

Yiddish dialects—as spoken in different regions of Europe.

Yiddish morphology—the structural detail of the language.

Yiddish orthography—the written representation of the language.

Yiddish phonology—the elements of the spoken language.

List of English words of Yiddish origin

List of Yiddish language poets

Yiddish Renaissance

The Yiddish King Lear

Yiddish literature

Yinglish

Notes

References

Birnbaum, Solomon, ''Yiddish – A Survey and a Grammar'', Toronto, 1979

Dunphy, Graeme, "The New Jewish Vernacular", in: Max Reinhart, ''Camden House History of German Literature'' vol 4: ''Early Modern German Literature 1350-1700'', 2007, ISBN 1-57113-247-3, 74-9.

Fishman, Joshua A. (ed.), ''Never Say Die: A Thousand Years of Yiddish in Jewish Life and Letters'', Mouton Publishers, The Hague, 1981, ISBN 90-279-7978-2 (in Yiddish and English).

Lansky, Aaron, ''Outwitting History: How a Young Man Rescued a Million Books and Saved a Vanishing Civilisation'', Algonquin Books, Chapel Hill, 2004, ISBN 1-56512-429-4.

Rosten, Leo, ''Joys of Yiddish'', Pocket, 2000, ISBN 0-7434-0651-2

Shandler, Jeffrey, ''Adventures in Yiddishland: Postvernacular Language and Culture'', University of California Press, Berkeley, 2006, ISBN 0-520-24416-8.

Shmeruk, Chone, Prokim fun der yidisher literatur-geshikhte, Peretz, Tel-Aviv 1988.

Weinreich, Uriel. ''College Yiddish: an Introduction to the Yiddish language and to Jewish Life and Culture'', 6th revised ed., YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York, 1999, ISBN 0-914512-26-9 (in Yiddish and English).

Weinstein, Miriam, ''Yiddish: A Nation of Words'', Ballantine Books, New York, 2001, ISBN 0-345-44730-1.

Wex, Michael, ''Born to Kvetch: Yiddish Language and Culture in All Its Moods'', St. Martin's Press, New York, 2005, ISBN 0-312-30741-1.

Wexler, Paul, ''Two-Tiered Relexification in Yiddish: Jews, Sorbs, Khazars, and the Kiev-Polessian Dialect'', Berlin, New York, Mouton de Gruyter, 2002, ISBN 3-11-017258-5.

Katz, Hirshe-Dovid, 1992. ''Code of Yiddish spelling ratified in 1992 by the programmes in Yiddish language and literature at Bar Ilan University, Oxford University Tel Aviv University, Vilnius University.'' Oxford: Oksforder Yidish Press in cooperation with the Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies. (כלל–תקנות פון יידישן אויסלייג. 1992. אקספארד: אקספארדער צענטער פאר העכערע העברעאישע שטודיעס) ISBN 1-897744-01-3

Further reading

Periodicals

''YIVO Bleter'', pub. YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, NYC, initial series from 1931, new series since 1991.

''Afn Shvel'', pub. League for Yiddish, NYC, since 1940; אויפן שוועל, sample article אונדזער פרץ – Our Peretz

''Lebns-fragn'', by-monthly for social issues, current affairs, and culture, Tel Aviv, since 1951; לעבנס-פראגן, current issue

''Yerusholaymer Almanakh'', periodical collection of Yiddish literature and culture, Jerusalem, since 1973; ירושלימער אלמאנאך, new volume, contents and downloads

''Der Yiddisher Tam-Tam'', pub. Maison de la Culture Yiddish, Paris, since 1994, also available in electronic format.

''Yidishe Heftn'', pub. Le Cercle Bernard Lazare, Paris, since 1996, יידישע העפטן sample cover, subscription info.

''Gilgulim, naye shafungen'', new literary magazine, Paris, since 2008; גילגולים, נייע שאפונגען

External links

''yidish lebt'' project – open-source dictionary, spellchecker, keyboard for windows, and other stuff for yidish language

http://lib.cet.ac.il/pages/item.asp?item=12887 Israeli Government Portal: Yiddish

Free Yiddish Dictionary

On-line Yiddish dictionary

A Dictionary of the Yiddish Language by Alexander Harkavy, 1898 (from Google Books); 1910 edition (online), 6th edition

Verterbukh – Yiddish Resources Online

Yiddish Book Center

Jewish Language Research Website: Yiddish

SBS Weekly Yiddish News (Australia)

Yiddish Typewriter – interconverts Yiddish text in Hebrew script with YIVO transliteration

WWW Virtual Library History Central Catalogue – Yiddish Sources Academic portal for Yiddish Studies, includes an online bibliography.

'Hover & Hear' New York Yiddish pronunciations, and compare with equivalents in English and other Germanic languages.

YIVO Institute for Jewish Research

Category:Ashkenazi Jews topics Category:Jewish languages Category:Jews and Judaism in Germany Category:German dialects Category:High German languages Category:Languages of Israel Category:Languages of Russia Category:Diaspora languages

af:Jiddisj als:Jiddisch am:ዪዲሽኛ ar:لغة يديشية az:İdiş dili zh-min-nan:Yidish-gí ba:Идиш be:Ідыш be-x-old:Ідыш bjn:Bahasa Yiddish bar:Jiddisch br:Yideg bg:Идиш (език) ca:Jiddisch cv:Идиш cs:Jidiš da:Jiddisch pdc:Yiddisch de:Jiddisch et:Jidiši keel el:Γίντις es:Yidis eo:Jida lingvo eu:Yiddish fa:زبان ییدیش fr:Yiddish fy:Jiddysk ga:An Ghiúdais gd:Iùdais gl:Lingua yiddish ko:이디시어 hsb:Jidišćina hr:Jidiš id:Bahasa Yiddi ie:Yiddic it:Lingua yiddish he:יידיש jv:Basa Yiddish ka:იდიში kw:Yedhowek ku:Yîdîş lad:Idish la:Lingua Iudaeogermanica lv:Jidišs lt:Jidiš lij:Lengua yiddish li:Jiddisch hu:Jiddis nyelv ml:യിദ്ദിഷ് arz:ييدى ms:Bahasa Yiddish nl:Jiddisch nds-nl:Jiddisj ja:イディッシュ語 no:Jiddisch nn:Jiddisch oc:Yiddish mhr:Идиш йылме pnb:یدش nds:Jiddisch pl:Jidysz pt:Língua iídiche crh:Yidiş tili ro:Limba idiș ru:Идиш sco:Yiddish leid scn:Lingua yiddish simple:Yiddish sk:Jidiš sl:Jidiš szl:Jidisz sr:Јидиш sh:Jidiš fi:Jiddiš sv:Jiddisch tl:Wikang Yidis ta:இத்திய மொழி kab:Yidic th:ภาษายิดดิช tr:Yidiş uk:Їдиш vi:Tiếng Yiddish yi:יידיש zh:意第緒語

name	Yi Jianlian易建联
width	190
height ft	7
height in	0
weight lb	250
position	Power forward/Center
birth date	October 27, 1987 (disputed)
birth place	Heshan, Guangdong
college	Guangdong University of Technology (2003–2007)
nationality	Chinese
draft round	1
draft pick	6
draft team	Milwaukee Bucks
draft year	2007
teams	Guangdong Southern Tigers (2002–2007) Milwaukee Bucks (2007–2008) New Jersey Nets (2008–2010) Washington Wizards (2010–2011)
career start	2002
highlights	4× CBA Champion (2004, 2005, 2006, 2007) 3× CBA Finals MVP (2004–2006) 4× CBA All-Star (2004–2007) }}

Yi Jianlian (, born October 27, 1987 [disputed]) is a Chinese professional basketball player who last played for the Washington Wizards of the National Basketball Association (NBA). Yi played power forward for the Guangdong Southern Tigers of the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) in 2002 and subsequently won the Rookie of the Year Award. In his five-year career with the Tigers, he won three CBA titles, as well as playing with the Chinese national basketball team in the 2004 Summer Olympics and the 2006 FIBA World Championships. In the 2007 NBA Draft, he was selected by the Milwaukee Bucks as the sixth overall pick. Initially, Yi declined to sign with the Bucks for several months before agreeing to a contract with them on August 29, 2007.

There has been controversy over Yi's age, as several reports have testified that his officially listed birth date of October 27, 1987, was intentionally falsified so he would be able to play longer in junior competitions. Yi has refused to comment on his age.

Career in China

Yi was born to father Yi Jingliu and mother Mai Meiling, who were both professional handball players. As a child, his parents initially did not want him to join a sports school, which is designed for children who are predicted to be future stars. However, after a sports school basketball coach noticed Yi playing streetball, he persuaded Yi's family to allow Yi to train professionally.

Hoping to sign Yi to an endorsement deal, Adidas invited him to attend the company's ABCD camp in Teaneck, New Jersey in 2002, where he competed against All-American high school players. After returning to China later that year, he joined the senior team of the Guangdong Southern Tigers and averaged 3.5 points and 1.9 rebounds in his rookie season. He also averaged 7.3 points and 7.3 rebounds in four games in the CBA Finals and won the Rookie of the Year award. In 2003, Yi was featured in ''TIME'' magazine's August 24, 2003 article titled "The Next Yao Ming". In each of his next three seasons, Yi led Guangdong to the CBA championship, and he was awarded the Finals Most Valuable Player (MVP) honor in 2006. In Yi's last season in the CBA, he averaged a career best 24.9 points and 11.5 rebounds per game, but the Tigers lost to the Bayi Rockets in the 2007 CBA finals. He also studied at the School of Economics and Management at Guangdong University of Technology.

NBA career

Entering the NBA

Yi was not expected to enter the NBA Draft until 2009 because the Chinese Basketball Association ruled that players would not be allowed to leave until they turned 22. In early 2006, however, Yi announced that he would enter the 2006 NBA Draft, although he eventually decided to withdraw, saying he was "not good enough to compete in the NBA and needed more experience". A year later, on November 1, 2006, the Tigers announced that Yi would enter the 2007 NBA Draft.

Yi chose NBA agent Dan Fegan to represent him in the NBA Draft and flew to Los Angeles to participate in pre-NBA Draft camps. Before the draft, Yi was predicted to be picked anywhere from third to twelfth. On June 28, 2007, Yi was selected by the Milwaukee Bucks with the sixth overall pick in the 2007 NBA Draft, despite Fegan warning the Bucks not to pick Yi and not allowing Milwaukee to be one of the teams invited to Yi's pre-draft private workouts in Los Angeles. He did not want Milwaukee to select Yi because they did not have a large Asian-American community. However, general manager Larry Harris said they had only drafted the best player available to them.

Footage of Yi posting up against a chair instead of another basketball player was shown during the Draft telecast, which earned him the nickname "The Chairman", coined by ESPN writer Bill Simmons.

After the draft, the Bucks attempted to convince Yi to sign with the team. On July 2, the owner of the Bucks franchise, Senator Herb Kohl, wrote a letter to Yi and his representatives, hoping to persuade Yi to sign with the Bucks. Three days later, Harris and head coach Larry Krystkowiak met Yi in Las Vegas, desiring to influence Yi to play for Milwaukee; however, Yi's representatives requested that the team trade Yi to another city with a large Chinese presence. Chinese officials also required that any team Yi played with would have to give him sufficient playing time for him to improve before the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Kohl made a special trip to Hong Kong to appeal to Yi personally. He also assured Chinese officials that Yi would have sufficient playing time, and on August 29, 2007, the Milwaukee Bucks and Yi agreed to a standard, multi-year rookie contract.

Rookie season

After being named to the Bucks' starting lineup by Krystkowiak in place of Charlie Villanueva to begin the 2007–08 NBA season, Yi had nine points and three rebounds in a loss to Orlando in his NBA debut. He played his first home game in Milwaukee three days later and scored 16 points while grabbing eight boards in a 78–72 win against the Chicago Bulls. The game was also Yi's first game to be televised nationally in China, where it was watched by 100 million viewers. Yao Ming praised Yi's play in his first games, saying, "If you compare us in our third NBA games, you will see that Yi's statistics are far better than mine".

On November 9, Yi played against Yao for the first time when the Houston Rockets hosted Milwaukee in the Toyota Center. Yi had 19 points and nine rebounds, including two three-pointers, but the Rockets topped the Bucks 104–88, with Yao scoring 28 points and grabbing 10 rebounds. The game was also watched by over 200 million people in China, making it one of the most-watched games in NBA history. After the game, Yao called Yi's talent "unbelievable", and Tracy McGrady said that Yi had "A tremendous upside in this league". Del Harris, the coach of the China's 2004 Olympics basketball team, also described Yi as "the most athletic 7-footer in the NBA".

Yi was named the Rookie of the Month for December after averaging 12.1 points and 6.6 rebound per game in that month, and scoring a career-high 29 points on 14-of-17 shooting in the game against the Bobcats on December 22, 2007. On January 30, he was selected for the rookie team in the Rookie Challenge at the 2008 NBA All-Star Game. On February 2, 2008, Yi faced Yao for the second time when the Bucks played the Rockets in Milwaukee, which Krystkowiak dubbed it the "Chinese Super Bowl". However, both players struggled during the Rockets' 91–83 victory. Yao had 12 points, and Yi injured his shoulder during the game, finishing the game with 6 points and scoring on one of his ten field goal attempts.

On April 2, it was announced that Yi would miss the rest of the season with a knee injury. Having already missed eight games with other injuries, Yi played in only 66 (out of a possible 82) games in his rookie season, averaging 8.6 points on 42% shooting and 5.2 rebounds per game. One of Milwaukee's assistant coaches, Brian James, later said that "the injuries he had bothered him more than people realized, and he couldn't play through them."

New Jersey Nets

On June 26, 2008, Yi was traded along with Bobby Simmons to the New Jersey Nets for Richard Jefferson. The Nets team president Rod Thorn said that "we feel strongly he's going to be a real good player", and the team's chief executive Brett Yormark said "it opens up a truly new fan base for us." Yi said he didn't expect to be traded, but that it was "an honor to join the Nets."

Through his first 37 games with New Jersey, Yi averaged 10.5 points and 6.2 rebounds a game, while shooting 39% from behind the three-point line, which was well above his average from the previous season. But on January 9, 2009, Yi broke the little finger on his right hand, and was expected to miss four to six weeks. Thorn called it "lousy timing" because "he'd been playing well", but Yi said "(I'll) just take my time. I'll come back." In voting for the 2009 All-Star Game, Yi finished third in total votes for Eastern Conference forwards, ahead of players such as Paul Pierce and Chris Bosh, which raised allegations of Chinese fans voting for Yi only because of his nationality.

Yi made his return from injury after the All-Star Game, in a loss to the Rockets on February 17. However, after averaging only 6 points on 36% shooting after his return, Yi was removed from the starting lineup. His final averages for the season were 8.6 points and 5.3 rebounds per game, as well as a 38% shooting percentage from the field, and 34% on three-point field goals. After the Nets finished the season outside of the 2009 playoffs, Yi's agent Fegan suggested the Nets played better when Yi played more minutes and took more shots, and said it "begs the question...who's accountable?" Head coach Lawrence Frank said that "you have to be patient. He's only 21," and Yi assessed his season by saying he was "still too much up and down".

In the , Yi returned to the starting lineup. Starting in every game he played but one, Yi had several injuries during the season, which made him miss 30 games. He sprained his right MCL on November 4 (missed 16 games), had a laceration on his upper lip on December 8 (missed 8 games), and sprained his left ankle on March 8 (missed 6 games). His final averages for the season were 12 points and 7.2 rebounds per game, as well as a 40% shooting percentage from the field, and 37% on three-point field goals.

Washington Wizards

On June 29, 2010, Yi was traded to the Washington Wizards along with $3 million in cash considerations for Quinton Ross.. The Wizards had until June 30, 2011 to extend the qualifying offer to Yi but did not. As a result, Yi is currently an unrestricted free agent.

International career

Yi's first major international experience came at the FIBA Under-19 World Championships, where he averaged 18.9 points and 11.5 rebounds per game. He debuted with the senior national team in the 2004 Olympic Games and averaged 6 points and 6 rebounds a game at the 2006 FIBA World Championships. His performance impressed coaches on the Chinese national team as well as the coaches from other countries.

In 2008, Yi was once again selected to play for the national team in the Beijing Olympic Games. In China's first two groups games, Yi scored only 9 and 4 points respectively, and China lost both their games against the USA and Spain. But in a win against Angola, he recorded a double-double, and in the Chinese's second win against Germany, Yi had 9 points and 11 rebounds, and hit the crucial shot with 28 seconds left, to help China advance to the quarterfinals. However, Lithuania ended China's run by beating them 94–68, as Yi scored 11 points.

Yi Jianlian, along with former NBA player Sun Yue, was a member of the Chinese National Team that played at the 2009 FIBA Asia Championship. The tournament was held from August 6 to August 16, 2009 in Tianjin, China.

Off the court

===Age discrepancy=== In 2004, Yi was listed as being born in 1984 in China's Four Nation Tournament, although Chinese officials said that it was probably a typographical error. Two years later, Fran Blinebury of ''The Houston Chronicle'' reported that Yi told Shane Battier he was 24 in an exhibition game before the 2006 FIBA World Championship, although the story was refuted by both Yi and Battier. Yi is not the first Chinese player to come under scrutiny, as former NBA player Wang Zhizhi has been listed as being born in both 1977 and 1979.

In 2006, a senior CBA official admitted that past youth squads had included players above the permitted age, and Yi's longtime American teammate in China, Jason Dixon, said to Chad Ford that Yi was "21 or 22...It's pretty common over [in China] to change ages". In 2007, a Chinese government registration site made public by hackers showed Yi's date of birth as being in 1984, and in December 2008, a Chinese reporter discovered school registration forms that listed Yi as being born in 1984.

Personal life

Yi is fluent in both Mandarin and his native tongue of Cantonese. Although his English has improved in the United States, Yi still conducts interviews through his interpreter, Walter Ho. He is currently under contract with Coca Cola and Yili (a Chinese dairy company) to endorse their products in China, and after a bidding war with Adidas, Nike signed Yi to a six-figure endorsement deal. He was ranked fourth on Forbes' Chinese celebrities list in income and popularity in 2007. In 2008, Yi donated 100,000 yuan to support the Sichuan earthquake victims, and also participated in the 2008 Summer Olympics torch relay by carrying the torch during the Hainan leg of the relay.

Career statistics

CBA

!Regular season	!Team	!GP	!RPG	!APG	!FG%	!FT%	!PPG
	Guangdong	36	3.3	0.2	.58	.60	5.0
	Guangdong	28	5.9	0.5	.517	.741	9.7
	Guangdong	53	10.2	1.4	.568	.717	16.8
	Guangdong	52	9.7	1.2	.574	.754	20.5
	Guangdong	39	11.5	1.1	.585	.816	24.9
Career totals		172	9.6	1.1	.570	.783	18.6

NBA

Regular season

|- | align="left" | 2007–08 | align="left" | Milwaukee | 66 || 49 || 25.0 || .421 || .286 || .841 || 5.2 || .8 || .6 || .9 || 8.6 |- | align="left" | 2008–09 | align="left" | New Jersey | 61 || 52 || 23.3 || .382 || .343 || .772 || 5.3 || 1.0 || .5 || .6 || 8.6 |- | align="left" | 2009–10 | align="left" | New Jersey | 52 || 51 || 31.8 || .403 || .366 || .798 || 7.2 || .9 || .7 || 1.0 || 12.0 |- | align="left" | 2010–11 | align="left" | Washington | 63 || 11 || 17.7 || .418 || .231 || .681 || 3.9 || .4 || .4 || .5 || 5.6 |- | align="left" | Career | align="left" | | 242 || 163 || 24.1 || .405 || .335 || .784 || 5.3 || .8 || .5 || .7 || 8.5

Notes

External links

Time magazine (August 24, 2003)

Yi Jianlian Chinese fans site 建联网 | 易建联

Yi's World on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel 易世界

Category:1987 births Category:Living people Category:Basketball players at the 2004 Summer Olympics Category:Basketball players at the 2008 Summer Olympics Category:Cantonese people Category:Chinese basketball players Category:Chinese expatriate basketball people in the United States Category:Guangdong Southern Tigers players Category:Milwaukee Bucks draft picks Category:Milwaukee Bucks players Category:New Jersey Nets players Category:Olympic basketball players of China Category:People from Heshan Category:Power forwards (basketball) Category:Washington Wizards players

de:Yi Jianlian es:Yi Jianlian fr:Yi Jianlian hr:Yi Jianlian id:Yi Jianlian it:Yi Jianlian he:אי ג'יאנליאן lv:Ji Dzjaņliaņs lt:Yi Jianlian ja:易建聯 no:Yi Jianlian pl:Yi Jianlian simple:Yi Jianlian fi:Yi Jianlian zh:易建聯

name	Ying Yang Twins
background	group_or_band
alias	The Ying Yangers
origin	Atlanta, Georgia, United States
genre	Hip-hop, gangster rap, crunk, contemporary R&B;
years active	1997–present
label	Deep, TVT
associated acts	DJ LazLil JonThree 6 MafiaMr. ColliparkThe HoodRatzPitbullTrick Daddy
website	Yingyangmusic.com
current members	Kaine, D-Roc
past members	}}

The Ying Yang Twins is an Atlanta-based American crunk rap duo consisting of Kaine (born Eric Jackson on December 16, 1978) and D-Roc (born De'Angelo Holmes on February 23, 1979). The group debuted in 2000 and rose to mainstream popularity in 2003 collaborating with Lil Jon in his single "Get Low". In 2004 and 2005, Ying Yang Twins became more popular with party singles "Salt Shaker", "What's Happnin", "Shake", and "Badd". They have received notoriety for their song "Halftime (ft. Homebwoi)" which is played at New Orleans Saints homegames after most touchdowns.

Career

Ying Yang Twins debuted in 2000 with the single "Whistle While You Twurk", which was played on urban and pop radio stations and peaked at #16 on the US R&B;/Hip-Hop chart. They grew even more famous when they toured with Juz tha King, Kat Nu and Demo Dil on the tour called King Me. Their full-length debut album, ''Thug Walkin''', came out later that year.

Immediately after discovering fellow Atlanta hip hop artist Lil Jon, A&R; Bryan Leach began talks with representative Michael 'DJ Smurf' Crooms about signing the Ying Yang Twins to TVT Records. Protracted negotiations meant that a deal was not finalized in time to for the label to release their next album, ''Alley: The Return of the Ying Yang Twins'', which instead appeared in 2002 on Koch. The album was successful among hip-hop fans in the Southern United States. The same year, the group appeared on the album ''Kings of Crunk'' by Lil Jon on the single "Get Low", and the song was a huge club and radio hit. As Crooms had negotiated only a one-album deal with Koch, the duo was free to finally submit to the advances of TVT, who had impressed them with their recent work with Lil Jon & The East Side Boyz.

Their first album for TVT, ''Me & My Brother'', was certified platinum on April 12, 2005 and yielded three more hits — "Whats Happnin!", "Naggin'" and the popular Lil Jon collaboration "Salt Shaker". The same year the duo appeared on Britney Spears' album ''In the Zone'' singing the song "I Got That (Boom Boom)" and her television special of the same name. In 2004, TVT released ''My Brother & Me'', an album composed largely of remixes which featured a bonus DVD of the group's videos.

A new album ''U.S.A. (United State of Atlanta)'' appeared in the summer of 2005 as its singles "Wait (The Whisper Song)", "Badd", and "Shake" were dominating urban radio, and ''U.S.A. (Still United)'', a collection of outtakes, remixes, and collaborations similar to ''My Brother & Me'' followed in December 2005. It too was accompanied by a DVD featuring music videos and other footage from the ''U.S.A. (United State of Atlanta)'' period.

In 2005, D-Roc and his younger brothers, Mr. Weeny, and Da Birthday Boy, formed the group Da Muzicianz and released their first single, ''"Camera Phone"''. Their self-titled album was released on February 28, 2006.

The group's fifth album ''Chemically Imbalanced'' was released in November 2006. For this album the Twins collaborated with producers Wyclef Jean and Keith Duplessis in addition to Mr. Collipark, who produced a majority of the songs on the group's previous album. The first two singles were the Hall & Oates-sampling "Dangerous", featuring Wyclef Jean, and "Jigglin'". In 2008, the Twins released the mixtape ''The Official Work'' and a promo single titled "Drop". A highlight of the Ying Yang Twins' tour includes a visit to the Epsilon MU Chapter of Sigma Chi. Here they performed all their hits live in front of a sold out Texas crowd. All of the proceeds from the show went to charity. In 2009, the Twins released their latest album with Deep Records, ''Ying Yang Forever'', and started a tour titled "Ying Yang Forever Tour".

Their song "Halftime (Stand Up and Get Crunk)" is now a standard in many NFL football stadiums, and is considered to be the unofficial anthem of the New Orleans Saints during their Super Bowl victory season, even though it has been a staple at Saints games since 2006. This song was performed live during the victory parade. The song has also been used in NFL Street 2 and Madden NFL 11.

On November 3, 2009, Ying Yang Twins released their greatest hits album via The Orchard and BOOTY Records. The album includes top ten billboard hits “What’s Happinin”, “Shake”, “Salt Shaker”, and “Wait (The Whisper Song)” plus three new tracks.

On February 9, 2011, RCRD LBL shared a download of "Boomerang" produced by Mr. Collipark.

On April 14, 2011, The Ying Yang Twins made their comeback by performing at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas.

Discography

Studio albums

''Alley: The Return of the Ying Yang Twins'' (2002)

''Me & My Brother'' (2003)

''U.S.A. (United State of Atlanta)'' (2005)

''Chemically Imbalanced'' (2006)

''Ying Yang Forever'' (2009)

Remix albums

''My Brother & Me'' (2004)

''U.S.A. Still United'' (2005)

Compilation albums

''Legendary Status: Ying Yang Twins Greatest Hits'' (2009)

''Gumbo Vol. 1'' (2010)

''Gumbo Vol. 2'' (2010)

Mixtapes

''The Official Work'' (2008)

Filmography

''Soul Plane'' (2004)

Awards and Nominations

(2000) Best Rap Song with Group "Whistle While You Twerk" - Won

(2000) Best New Artist - Nominated

(2002) Best Rap Song with Group "Say I Yi Yi" - Won

(2003) Best Rap Song with Group "Get Low" ft. Lil Jon & The Eastside Boyz - Nominated

(2005) Best Rap Song with Group "Wait (The Whisper Song)" - Nominated

References

External links

Ying Yang Twins' Social Networking Community YingYangTwinsRadio.com

Official website

Category:American hip hop groups Category:African American rappers Category:Musical duos Category:TVT Records artists Category:Musical groups established in 2000 Category:Musical groups from Georgia (U.S. state) Category:Rappers from Atlanta, Georgia Category:Southern hip hop groups

de:Ying Yang Twins es:Ying Yang Twins fr:Ying Yang Twins it:Ying Yang Twins nl:Ying Yang Twins ja:イン・ヤン・ツインズ pl:Ying Yang Twins pt:Ying Yang Twins fi:Ying Yang Twins sv:Ying Yang Twins tr:Ying Yang Twins

name	Jin Jing
birth date	1981
birth place	Hefei, Anhui, China
previous teams	Shanghai Wheelchair Fencing Team (2001-?) Chinese National Wheelchair Fencing Team (2005-2007)
updated	}}

Jin Jing (Chinese: 金晶; Pinyin: Jīn Jīng; born in 1981 in Hefei, Anhui, China) is a Chinese female Paralympic fencer. She was a torchbearer carrying the Olympic torch amid political protests during the 2008 Summer Olympics torch relay in Paris, France. According to ''ABC News'', she fended off protestors who "threw themselves" at her; most were wrestled away by French police but at least one reached her wheelchair and tried to wrench the torch away. Jin has gained national fame in China because of the incident, but was attacked on Chinese internet bulletin boards for her stance in the following call to boycott French retailer Carrefour that resulted from public anger toward France.

Family and personal life

Jin Jing's parents are wage earners. Her father, Jin Jiansheng (Chinese: 金建生), is a rusticated youth who moved from Shanghai to Anhui during the Cultural Revolution, where he met and married Liu Huayao (Chinese: 刘华瑶). Jin was born in 1981, in Hefei, Anhui, She has a younger sister, Jin Renyu (Chinese: 金任钰).

Jin had part of her right leg amputated in 1989 when she was in elementary school after a malignant tumor was found on her ankle and later underwent a year of chemotherapy. She moved to Shanghai with her family in 1995 and studied information technology in a technical secondary school. After graduation, she worked as a telephone operator in a hotel in Shanghai. Jin is currently single.

Career

On July 13, 2001, the day when Beijing was elected the host city for 2008 Summer Olympics, Jin Jing became a member of the Shanghai Wheelchair Fencing Team. Later on she joined the Chinese National Wheelchair Fencing Team.

Her career as a fencer is summarized in the following table:

align="center" rowspan="2" align="center" rowspan="2" align="center" align="center" align="center" rowspan="2" align="center"

		!Tournament	!Venue	!Event	!Result	!Source
2002	Wheelchair Fencing World Cup ||	Warsaw, Poland	Women's Wheelchair Fencing Épée	8 th
rowspan="2"	2002	FESPIC Games ||	Busan, South Korea	Women's Wheelchair Fencing Épée	bgcolor="silver">silver
Women's Wheelchair Fencing Foil (fencing)	Foil (Team)
	6th National Paralympic Games of the P.R. China||	Nanjing, China	Women's Wheelchair Fencing Épée	bronze
Women's Wheelchair Fencing Foil (Team)	silver
2003	World Wheelchair Games ||	Christchurch, New Zealand	Women's Wheelchair Fencing Épée	bronze
2005	National Table Tennis and Fencing Games||	Nanjing, China	Women's Wheelchair Fencing Foil	bronze
rowspan="2"	2005	Wheelchair Fencing World Cup||	Hong Kong	Women's Wheelchair Fencing Épée	5 th
Women's Wheelchair Fencing Foil	5 th

On May 6, 2008, Jin Jing was named as the ambassador of a Paralympic cheering group to help publicize Paralympic sports worldwide in the runup to the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing.

On September 6, she brought the Paralympic torch into the Bird's Nest stadium during the Opening Ceremony of the Paralympic Games. On this occasion, she "made headlines in the Chinese media", according to the Agence France-Presse.

2008 Summer Olympics torch relay

In 2007, Jin Jing turned up for a selective trial, titled ''You Are the Torchbearer'', which was organized by China Central Television, and was chosen to be an Olympic torchbearer. On April 7, 2008, she was the third torchbearer carrying the Olympic Flame during the relay in Paris, amidst protests and physical attempts to snatch the torch by demonstrators. According to ''ABC News'', "Protesters denouncing Chinese policy in Tibet threw themselves at Jin. Most were wrestled away by police but at least one reached her wheelchair and tried to wrench the torch away." Jin was quoted by the state-run newspaper ''China Daily'' as saying that she "would die to protect the torch." The International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge commented on the incident, saying, "What shocked me most is when someone tried to rob ''(sic?)'' the torch off a wheelchair athlete, a disabled athlete who was unable to defend the torch. This is unacceptable."

On her arrival back to Beijing, after the Paris relay, Jin was interviewed by ''Sohu''. Of her experience of the relay, she said: }}

Commenting on Tibet itself in interviews, she said she knew little of politics before encountering the demonstrations in Paris, and had never heard of the pro-Tibet independence movement. When asked by the UK's ''The Daily Telegraph'' she also said, "My opinion before was that Tibet was an inseparable part of our country, now I hold this point more firmly than before."

Jin has been celebrated first on internet bulletin boards and soon in Chinese media. She was treated to a hero's welcome upon her return to Beijing and China's news reports described her as the "Smiling Angel in Wheelchair" and the "Most Beautiful Torchbearer". According to Canada's ''The Globe and Mail'', initially the state media of China censored all reports on the torch protests and the incident involving Jin Jing, but it soon reported on the protest and portrayed China as the victim, thus appealing to patriotic sentiments. The UK's ''The Times'' wrote that Chinese media coverage of the Paris leg of the relay was "reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution when propaganda organs were able to whip up the public into a frenzy of rage over an issue of their choice." ''The Associated Press'' wrote that Jin is "now known as a defender of China's dignity" and joins "a list of heroes promoted by the communist government's propaganda authorities", while ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' called her a "new heroine in China" by whom Beijing "is trying to claw back one or two propaganda points from the torch's recent rocky progress." The French magazine ''Marianne'' devoted a full page to her in its April 26 edition, and commented that the Chinese flame attendants were "strangely" absent when Jin carried the torch, leaving it up to the French police alone to guard Jin and her companions. But according to the interview Jin gave to ''Sohu'' on April 9, she was waiting to accept the flame as the third torchbearer, and security was "relatively light" around her, when the protestors "began lunging" at her. ''Marianne'' wrote that Jin's story had become a "legend skillfully propagated" by the Chinese media: "Images of Jin Jing holding the torch against her heart, her eyes closed in her lovely face, are being shown over and over on CCTV and are inflaming the Chinese Internet," making Jin famous for "hundreds of millions of Chinese viewers and netizens." The French newspaper ''Le Figaro'' published an analysis of what it referred to as "the Jin Jing phenomenon": "The media have been drumming into people's heads the story of this young woman who became, in the space of an incident in Paris, the symbol of Chinese pride in the face of Western hostility. The actions of the media bore their fruit, and the 'angel in a wheelchair' has generated unprecedented enthusiasm in China and among Chinese communities all over the world."

The event involving Jin Jing in Paris sparked outrage around China, and Chinese citizens started to urge on the internet for a boycott of French goods and businesses, and touted to "hunt down" the protester who accosted Jin and "teach him a lesson." On April 21, two weeks after the incident, Jin received a personal letter from French president Nicolas Sarkozy, delivered by Senate President Christian Poncelet. In the letter Sarkozy referred to the attack as "intolerable", and said he "condemns it with the utmost force." Xinhua reported that Jin was "very glad to be invited by President Sarkozy to France" and that she "hope[d] to contribute her own efforts to cementing the Sino-France friendship". However, Jin also expressed her disappointment to the press later that Sarkozy "expressed regret, shock and condemnation but no apology."

On September 18, 2008, Jin was received by President Sarkozy at the Palais de l'Elysée. Sarkozy publicly stated that he was "very happy to greet [her]", and praised her "exemplary courage". Reuters, describing Jin as a "nationalist icon", reported that the incident in Paris had "caused a diplomatic rift between China and France that Sarkozy has been at pains to mend ever since", and that his hosting of Jin at the Elysée palace was a means of "heal[ing] [the] rift".

Boycott of Carrefour

In April 2008, amidst calls in China to boycott French retailer Carrefour to show anger towards France and the experience Jin Jing had in Paris, Jin said she does not want people to boycott Carrefour since most of its employees are Chinese and they will be first affected. She also spoke in support of "Chinese people's friendship with the French", wished the best for French athletes at the Beijing Olympics, and added: "We Chinese people will certainly welcome French people and athletes to China with a tolerant, friendly and passionate attitude." She had received strong personal attacks on Chinese bulletin boards, though her popularity is still considered very high. So far, she is still called "The Angel in Wheelchair".

See also

Paralympic sports

Sports in China

References

External links

Video of the Jin Jing incident in Paris

Jin Jing's blog: Start from the spirit (in Chinese)

Jin Jing's album

Louisa Lim Protests Boost Chinese Torchbearers' Resolve National Public Radio, April 10, 2008

Category:1981 births Category:Living people Category:Chinese fencers Category:Olympic fencers of China Category:Chinese amputees

fr:Jin Jing ja:金晶 zh-yue:金晶 zh:金晶

Rèn Yí (任頤, 1840-1896), also known as Ren Bonian, was a painter and son of a rice merchant who supplemented his income by doing portraits. He was born in Zhejiang, but after the death of his father in 1855 he lived in Shanghai. This move placed him in a more urban world that was exposed to Western thinking. In Shanghai he became a member of the Shanghai School which fused popular and traditional styles. He is also sometimes referred to as one of the "Four Rens."

He was noted for his bold brushstrokes and use of color. In his earlier career the Song Dynasty painters influenced him, but later on he favored a freer style influenced by the works of Zhu Da.

Sources

Chinese Paintings in the Ashmolean Museum Oxford(132) Oxford ISBN 1-85444-132-9

External links

Painting Gallery of Ren Bonian at China Online Museum

Ren Bonian on China Online Museum

Artfact article

Category:1840 births Category:1896 deaths Category:Qing Dynasty painters Category:People from Shaoxing

ja:任頤 zh:任伯年